Forget Titanic: Women and children rarely first off sinking ships

Database of disasters shows the crew has the highest survival rate.

The sinking of the Titanic hasn't just become a pop-cultural icon; it's also one of the best studied disasters of all time. But there are hints that it may not have been a typical event. The ship's captain ordered that women and children be allowed to evacuate first, and his officers apparently enforced it by shooting guns in the area of anyone who disobeyed. In contrast, the Lusitania sank so quickly that there wasn't time to organize an evacuation, and women and children fared really badly.

To get to the bottom of this, two Swedish researchers have compiled data on 18 major maritime disasters, ranging from 1852 to 2011. An analysis of the survival shows that, in contrast to the Titanic, the crew generally does the best, and children the worst. Women started out doing pretty poorly, but their survival have been going up as the years have passed. But before we conclude that chivalry was dead and seeing a revival, we'll caution you that it may be just that more women now learn how to swim.

The authors argue that shipwrecks can actually tell us a fair bit about human behavior, since everyone stuck on a sinking ship has to do a bit of cost-benefit analysis. People will weigh their options—which will generally involve helping others at great risk to themselves—amidst a backdrop of social norms and, at least in case of the Titanic, direct orders from authority figures. "This cost–benefit logic is fundamental in economic models of human behavior," the authors write, suggesting that a shipwreck could provide a real-world test of ideas derived from controlled experiments.

Eight ideas, to be precise. That's how many hypotheses the authors lay out, ranging from "women have a survival advantage in shipwrecks" to "women are more likely to survive on British ships, given the UK's strong sense of gentility." They tested them using a database of ship sinkings that encompasses over 15,000 passengers and crew, and provides information on everything from age and sex to whether the passenger had a first-class ticket.

For the most part, the lessons provided by the Titanic simply don't hold. Excluding the two disasters mentioned above, crew members had a survival rate of over 60 percent, far higher than any other group analyzed. (Although they didn't consistently survive well—in about half the wrecks, there was no statistical difference between crew and passengers). Rather than going down with the ship, captains ended up coming in second, with just under half surviving. The authors offer a number of plausible reasons for crew survival, including better fitness, a thorough knowledge of the ship that's sinking, and better training for how to handle emergencies. In any case, however, they're not clearly or consistently sacrificing themselves to save their passengers.

At the other end of the spectrum, nearly half the children on the Titanic survived, but figures for the rest of the shipwrecks were down near 15 percent. About a quarter of women survived other sinkings, but roughly three times that made it through the Titanic alive. If you exclude the Titanic, female survival was 18 percent, or about half the rate at which males came through alive.

What about social factors? Having the captain order "women and children first" did boost female survival, but only by about 10 percentage points. Most of the other ideas didn't pan out. For example, the speed of sinking, which might give the crew more time to get vulnerable passengers off first, made no difference whatsoever to female survival. Neither did the length of voyage, which might give passengers more time to get to know both the boat and each other. The fraction of passengers that were female didn't seem to make a difference either.

One social factor that did play a role was price of ticket: "there is a class gradient in survival benefitting first class passengers." Another is the being on a British ship, where (except with the Titanic), women actually had lower rates of survival.

But the biggest factor seems to have been time. Since World War I, the gender gap has been shrinking, something the authors ascribe to the changing role of women in society. But it's not clear whether that involves some sort of social factor that plays out in disasters or just a better level of fitness overall.

Although the analysis includes citizens of 30 nations among the passengers and crew involved, all but one of the ships in the study belong to the US or European nations. This is probably because the authors required detailed passenger lists to perform their analysis, but it is a fairly narrow window into human behavior. With the sample it has, the study suggests that there aren't many rules when it comes to surviving a sinking ship but, if you're a woman, it's better to rely on equality between the sexes than chivalry.

What about being closer to the deck of the ship? Is the bridge not closer to the deck? Are the 1st class cabins not closer to the deck? If you're in the belly of the ship would that work against you in terms of survival rate? Didn't see that mentioned as a factor.

"With the sample it has, the study suggests that there aren't many rules when it comes to surviving a sinking ship but, if you're a woman, it's better to rely on equality between the sexes than chivalry."

Never truer words spoken.

But on another note, here's a proposition relating to the "everyone stuck on a sinking ship has to do a bit of cost-benefit analysis": since the odds of survival are so pitiful generally, perhaps instead of making decisions with an eye to either upholding chivalry or saving your own skin, perhaps it would be more profitible to instead choose another passenger you find particularly odious, and ensure that they do not escape.

I would have thought a person's location on the ship when disaster strikes have been the deciding factor.

If I'm a member of the crew then I'd probably be on deck with a lifeboat in jumping distance. If I was a woman or child then I'd probably be in a room way below deck with lots of corridors and ladders to navigate. The difference in class also makes sense with lower class passengers being lower in the ship and having more distance to travel and thus less likely to survive.

Basically, the further you need to travel to get to the life boat the more likely you'll fail to make it.

What about that shipwreck this year were the boat ended up on it's side near the coast and the captain was lambasted for his poor behavior?

Gawain Lavers wrote:

But on another note, here's a proposition relating to the "everyone stuck on a sinking ship has to do a bit of cost-benefit analysis": since the odds of survival are so pitiful generally, perhaps instead of making decisions with an eye to either upholding chivalry or saving your own skin, perhaps it would be more profitible to instead choose another passenger you find particularly odious, and ensure that they do not escape.

Wouldn't the crew have a better chance to know how to swim? IMO swimming was probably the clearest indicator, children had a low chance of learning to swim until relatively recent years when schools linked to pools, same with women.

In cold water, children would also loose heat quicker and hypothermia would be a much greater threat.

I would have thought a person's location on the ship when disaster strikes have been the deciding factor.

If I'm a member of the crew then I'd probably be on deck with a lifeboat in jumping distance. If I was a woman or child then I'd probably be in a room way below deck with lots of corridors and ladders to navigate. The difference in class also makes sense with lower class passengers being lower in the ship and having more distance to travel and thus less likely to survive.

Basically, the further you need to travel to get to the life boat the more likely you'll fail to make it.

Depends on the class of vessel.

In general, crew members are mustered on the evacuation decks to prepare and assist in evacuation. I'd say that'd increase your odds of, in case of sudden need to evacuate, that you're going to get in a boat faster.

...

How about a study on non-passenger ships?

Do engineers have a different survival rate than deck crew? After all, deck crew are closer to the lifeboat. Also, stern launched life craft vs side launched. Stern launch units can be rigged to go quickly, by fewer personnel.

I imagine being able to swim would be a moot point if rescue ships took more than 20 minutes to arrive. At least in places like the North Atlantic, where anyone in the water is most likely dead in less than an hour. Not bothering to read the study, but I wonder if geographic location was a variable the accounted for.

As for the crew, their higher survival stats are probably helped by the fact that they would need at least some of them to man the boats. Plus, in a sinking emergency, they are going to be clustered around life boats as part of their jobs. Once the shit starts getting real, they jump on the nearest boat.

Wouldn't the crew have a better chance to know how to swim? IMO swimming was probably the clearest indicator, children had a low chance of learning to swim until relatively recent years when schools linked to pools, same with women.

In cold water, children would also loose heat quicker and hypothermia would be a much greater threat.

My 2cents.

Not to forget the simple fact that in general I'd think the scale of physical fitness would go something like:children < women < men < crew.

- They have been through the drills repeatedly- They know where the muster stations, lifeboats and lifejackets are- Every boat that goes away has crew on it- Knowing what to do means they are less likely to panic

Women started out doing pretty poorly, but their survival have been going up as the years have passed. But, before we conclude that chivalry was dead and seeing a revival, we'll caution you that it may be just that more women now learn how to swim.

Or maybe women's fashions have included less and less restrictive clothing? Corsets and petticoats don't exactly help your chances if you happen to get dumped without warning into the North Atlantic.

The study seems kind of useless. What kind of data are they going on? Purely the passenger list and the record of who survived? Do they take the circumstances of the sinking into account? How many could swim? It seems like, without answering a lot of other questions first, this study is soft-science. YMMV.

The Costa Concordia isn't interesting in this kind of study. 32 dead for 4052 (about 3000 passengers and 1000 crew mebers) people on board (according to Wikipedia), that's less than 1%, and any data out of it would fall inside the statistical error margin.

As for the other shipwrecks, most of them are either without any dead, boats/ships with a small crew (fishermen or cargo/tanker so almost only men on top of the too low to be useful numbers), or asylum seekers boats and others things like that where we obviously don't have any reliable data on the number of people on board.

What the researchers were looking for is a shipwreck of a ship with many people on board, a rather large number of dead on top of it (I'd say at least 10% to be significant), and reliable data on the passengers. That's rather rare.

Do engineers have a different survival rate than deck crew? After all, deck crew are closer to the lifeboat. Also, stern launched life craft vs side launched. Stern launch units can be rigged to go quickly, by fewer personnel.

In general engineers have a poorer rate of survival than deck crews, especially on older ships without engine room air conditioning. It's quite a strain on the system to go from a 100 degree f engine to 50 degree f water.

As far as crews generally having a better survival rate, I'd put money on a much less tendency to panic than the passengers.

When the titanic skunk down not one of the engineers survived.because of their position deep in the ship.Ever since then all engineers in the Royal navy and Royal merchant where a purple patch out of respect

Because of the women and children first orders with regard to the Titanic sinking, many lifeboats were launched well below capacity and this wastefulness lead to many needless deaths.The goal of evacuation is to fill all lifeboats to capacity and to launch them as quickly and efficiently as possible. If persons who are not rate-limited are commingled with those who are, the entire process takes more time and risk of hitting a cutoff point increases. Essentially, potential bandwidth is wasted by commingling rate-limited and not-rate-limited individuals.Aside from those with responsibilities to assist others, relying on ability to mobilize and ignoring gender and age considerations with regard to who goes first, would seem to give the most people the greatest chance of survival.

What about being closer to the deck of the ship? Is the bridge not closer to the deck? Are the 1st class cabins not closer to the deck? If you're in the belly of the ship would that work against you in terms of survival rate? Didn't see that mentioned as a factor.

2nd class tickets when ships were the major trans-ocean transport were below decks and below 1st class definitely. The scene in the movie Titanic may have been made up, but there were physical barriers between the ticket classes and the social classes as well.

Even when the British cruise liners were pressed into service as troop carriers, the officers got First class cabins. Non-coms got 2nd class. The conscripts got steerage and below decks. Ballrooms and racquetball courts got turned into dorms.

I'm not sure the authors of this study really understand the dynamics of a sinking ship. While there are a number of reasons for high crew survival rates, one of the most important is that crew members are supposed to man the lifeboats. They're trained in what to do and expected to act. In helping to save others, they save themselves. Fair or not, it's what happens.

Keep in mind that in most disasters, perhaps three quarters of those involved will be passive, waiting to be told what to do. What happens to them depends on how much leadership and command is shown by those who aren't frozen in disbelief or fright.

One reason the Titanic death toll was so high despite a dead calm sea and two hours to prepare was that Captain Smith did so little, creating a power vacuum. A strong captain could have made sure every lifeboat departed so filled with people the boat was barely afloat. Given the calm seas, probably twice as many people would have survived until the first rescue ship, the Carpathia, arrived at sunrise.

Leadership is the primary factor in who survives and who dies. Sex, age, and ticket price are secondary factors, which is why they can vary so much.

I realize that they were basing this on historical records, but 18 sounds like a small sample size to draw conclusions from.

That was my first thought. 18 ships is an awfully small sample size. Off the top of my head I can think of a handful of different factors which would skew the results wildly. Littoral or Blue Water, how fast the ship went down, whether it was a liner or a cruise ship, passenger ratios (male to female, adult to child, crew to passengers, ticket price), sea state, and time to rescue.

I would bet that in each of those 18 ship sinkings, most of them had very little in common other than if they sank in the open ocean or just off-shore.

I bet the only really reliable information that could come out of that sample is that there's a definite ratio between the length of time survivors were on the ocean before rescue and survival rate. Which you could then extrapolate out into the differing mortality rates of men, women, and children.

For this to work we need a ground hog day on one disaster, say the Titanic, but with each iteration we have a different set of crew and passengers each with their own different set of morale values, swimming skills, clothing etc, only the 'sinking' stays the same. Then we'll see some interesting statistics. Oh man why is that so facinating?

For this to work we need a ground hog day on one disaster, say the Titanic, but with each iteration we have a different set of crew and passengers each with their own different set of morale values, swimming skills, clothing etc, only the 'sinking' stays the same. Then we'll see some interesting statistics. Oh man why is that so facinating?

I thought the principle of women and children first had been adandoned long ago, because it is considered cruel to breakup families? If you're in an emergency, with people on the edge of panicking, you don't want to put extra distress on the people by separating husbands away from their wife and child.

They should have included the Costa Concordia into their study. Many passengers where filming the event with their mobile phone, it must be the best documented cruise disaster ever.

Wouldn't the crew have a better chance to know how to swim? IMO swimming was probably the clearest indicator, children had a low chance of learning to swim until relatively recent years when schools linked to pools, same with women.

In cold water, children would also loose heat quicker and hypothermia would be a much greater threat.

My 2cents.

Not to forget the simple fact that in general I'd think the scale of physical fitness would go something like:children < women < men < crew.

But the wrench in that theory is that women have a higher body fat percentage for insulation in cold waters. That is moot in the north Atlantic but could be pertinent in more temperate waters.

This also contributes to why women survive starvation situations better.

No, it isn't and wasn't. The problem is women have a nasty habit of bitching when a man is chivalrous, saying "I can do it myself, bastard!" then whine when they cannot do the thing in question themselves and no man wants to help them because of their previous statements.

I'm willing to help a woman without being asked, but if she tells me to leave her alone, I'm not going to wait around until she realizes she cannot do the thing in question herself and asks me to help her.

I'm also going to tell every other man "Psst.... she told me she could do it herself, don't help her!"